


Shore Leave

by TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:37:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead/pseuds/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead





	Shore Leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NinthFeather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinthFeather/gifts), [Mattecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattecat/gifts).



_ Reminder: Look into restructuring log dates to synchronize with Earth’s timescale.  _

 

_ Entry follows: Progress on the drill has been postponed temporarily for what the… for what Pearl has (perhaps mockingly) dubbed “shore leave”. It’s a 14 rotation-cycle initiative to acclimate me to Earth’s culture. It will involve extended periods of interpersonal and social contact. I’m not looking forward to it.  _

 

_ Peridot out. _

 

Sometimes I just can’t keep my mouth shut. Every single time, just when I was starting to have fun, something slips out and it makes everyone around me uncomfortable. Yesterday, Garnet took me to the “amusement park”. There were rows and rows of booths, each one with a unique activity one could perform in exchange for trinkets. It sounded utterly pointless on paper, but in practice, the competitive nature of the games caused me to lose sight of the worthlessness of the prizes. It was an enjoyable feeling that Steven tells me is called  _ fun. _ On Homeworld, we work. Efficiency is prized above all else, and that is why our meritocracy has formed the most powerful empire in the galaxy. But that’s not how it works here on Earth.

 

I’m getting off track. I got competitive. That’s what you’re supposed to do. What you’re not supposed to do is say, “Whoo! Eat it, war machine!”, to someone who’s really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.

 

Something like that happened every day for three days.

 

The feeling of shame that was rotting within me was awful. It was like I failed a mission back home. I wanted to fight someone, perhaps myself. It made it difficult to have fun.

 

On the fourth day, I excused myself from beach volleyball and asked Pearl to escort me to somewhere I could sit and think. There were some tables outside of an eat-station called The Big Donut. Pearl sat at one, and I sat at another, resting my chin in my hands. They didn’t trust me to be alone, which made sense, but that was what I wanted. 

  
I don’t know how long I sat like that, but Pearl gave me my space, which I appreciated. It was mid-afternoon when someone sat at my table.

 

It was a human male, one I’d never seen before. He wore a pair of sunglasses, a grey tea shirt that read “Prop. of Edinborough Football Dpt. 1987”, black cargo shorts and flip-flops. 

“Hey, luv. You don’t look so good. Something up?”, he said in an accent I didn’t recognize.

“Who’re you?”

“Oh, I’m Grant Kirkhope. I’m a composer for video games mostly. I did the music for a lot of Rareware games back in the late nineties. I wrote and performed all the music to Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Goldeneye Double-Oh-Seven, Banjo-Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64.”

 

I stared at him. 

 

“So what’s eatin’ you?”

“Well… I’ve been stranded on this planet, and… everything is different here. People are much gentler with one another, and where I come from, that means weakness. So much of what I’ve been taught to equate with strength is actually just cold, heartless aggression. It’s made it hard for anyone to be friends with me.”

Grant Kirkhope strummed thoughtfully on his Ukelele. 

“Y’know, when I first moved from England to California, I went through something similar. It’s hard making friends in new places, when people think and act in completely different ways. Sometimes the stuff you take as a given, the stuff that you build your morals around is completely wrong. But I think these people really want to be your friends. And they know you’re learning. They know that you’re a stranger in a strange land. And the people who  _ really  _ care about you will gladly give you the support you need.”

Pearl sat down next to him. “Grant Kirkhope is right. We know it’s hard to change, but we can see that you’re making the effort. Everything’s not going to get better all at once, but that’s what we’re here for. We’re your friends, Peridot. No matter what.”

All at once, I realized why they wanted to protect Earth.

 

“Well,” Grant Kirkhope said, “I best be off. Oh, but before I go, you should check out  [ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival ](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival) . All the folks from Rareware, including yours truly, are going to put together a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie called Yooka-Laylee.”

Pearl laughed nervously. “Uh, we’ll be sure to do that, Grant.”

Grant Kirkhope nodded, grinned, and walked out onto the beach. He breathed in the salty air, picked up a rock and hurled it into the ocean. 

“LET’S GO, MALACHITE! YOU ‘AVEN’T GOT A CHANCE! C’MON! C’MON AND ‘AVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH! COME OOOOOOOOON!”.

 


End file.
